This invention is in the field of optical character recognition (OCR).
Related applications which describe a method of reading typed text which are commonly assigned are as follows. Ser. No. 115,986, filed Jan. 28, 1980, Inventor, Warner C. Scott, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,415,880; Ser. No. 153,342 filed May 27, 1980, Inventor, Warner C. Scott, now abandoned; Ser. No. 501,037, filed June 1, 1983, Inventor, Warner C. Scott; Ser. No. 527,152, filed Aug. 26, 1983, Inventor, Warner C. Scott; Ser. No. 527,702 filed Aug. 26, 1983, Inventors, Warner C. Scott, Keith A. Blanton, Steven Peterson and Gene Helms; Ser. No. 527,151, filed Aug. 26, 1983, Inventors, Steven Peterson, Keith Blanton and Gene Helms, now abandoned; Ser. No. 527,150, filed Aug. 26, 1983, Inventors, Keith Blanton, Steven Peterson and Gene Helms; Ser. No. 527,731, filed Aug. 26, 1983, Inventors Keith Blanton, Steven Peterson and Gene Helms, now abandoned; Ser. No. 527,155, filed Aug. 26, 1983, Inventors, Steven Peterson, Kieth Blanton and Gene Helms; Ser. No. 527,153, filed Aug. 26, 1983, now abandoned, Inventor Charles Wray; Ser. No. 546,782, filed 10/27/83, Inventor, Warner C. Scott; Ser. No. 546,752, filed 10/27/83, Inventor, Warner C. Scott; Ser. No. 546,786, filed 10/28/83, Inventor, Warner C. Scott now abandoned. The above applications are commonly assigned and are hereby incorporated by reference.
OCR devices currently on the market have numerous disadvantages. They are very expensive, between $7,000 and $100,000, and use a large amount of electronic hardware. Many also use time consuming character matching techniques. An article titled "Machines That Read Move Up a Grade" by Herb Brody in High Technology, Feb. 1983 pp. 35-40 discusses OCR devices.
OCR devices currently on the market are not efficient in reading dot matrix print or poor quality characters. Dot matrix print is discontinuous at numerous locations and provide considerable more problems for recognition than characters typed on a standard typewriter. Additional problems are caused by low quality print or recognizing characters which has been photocopied numerous times. Often low quality print or pages which have been copied numerous time have many characters with discontinuous portions within the character. OCR devices on the market today do not adequately handle dot matrix print, low quality type and extremely poor copies.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved OCR machine capable of reading discontinuous characters.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method of reading dot matrix print.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method for reading poor quality text which is discontinuous at numerous locations or text which has been copied so many times as to be poor quality.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved OCR machine which is capable of implementing the method of this invention.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved OCR system capable of handling with high speed and accuracy numerous styles of text including typewriter text, dot matrix print, poor quality text and photocopied text.